It's finally official: KDE 2.2beta has beenannounced. "With this release, KDE is in a great position to deliver a very strong KDE 2.2 release," said Waldo Bastian, the KDE 2.2 release coordinator. "With support for IMAP, the totally new printing framework and improved proxy support, KDE 2.2 will be an excellent foundation for the desktop needs of many businesses." Some other goodies: KMail now can send mails without
blocking. Konqueror enhancements include stopping
animated GIFs (thank you, thank you!!), "Send File" and "Send Link"
options, new file previews and lots of new plugins. Noatun boasts
an improved plugin architecture and some new visualization plugins. KWin has Xinerama support. A number of new applications are part of the package, such as KPersonalizer (desktop configuration) and Kooka (scanning).
For a longer list, read theannouncement (also attached below),
and for a really long list of improvements, read theChangeLog. As always, enjoy, and thanks to the KDE "we never sleep" Team!

DATELINE JULY 4, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New KDE Beta Released for Linux Desktop

KDE Ships Beta of Leading Desktop with Advanced Web Browser, Anti-Aliased Font Capabilities for Linux and Other UNIXes

July 4, 2001 (The INTERNET).
The KDE
Project today announced the release of KDE 2.2beta1,
a powerful and easy-to-use Internet-enabled desktop for Linux. KDE
features Konqueror, a
state-of-the-art web browser, as an integrated
component of its user-friendly desktop environment, as well asKDevelop,
an advanced IDE, as a central component of KDE's powerful
development environment. KDE 2.2beta1 completely integrates theXFree anti-aliased
font extensions and can provide
a fully anti-aliased font-enabled desktop.

The primary goals of this release, which follows two months after the release
of KDE 2.1.2, are to provide a preview of KDE 2.2 and to involve
users and developers who wish to request/implement missing features or
identify problems. Code development is currently focused on stabilizing
KDE 2.2, scheduled for final release later this quarter.
Despite all the improvements, KDE 2.2 will be binary compatible with KDE 2.0.

KDE 2.2beta1 and all its components are available for free under
Open Source licenses from the KDEserver
and its mirrors (including
many precompiled packages) and can
also be obtained on CD-ROM.
As a result of the dedicated efforts of hundreds of translators,
KDE 2.2beta1 is available in38 languages and
dialects. KDE 2.2beta1 ships with the core KDE
libraries, the core desktop environment (including Konqueror), developer
packages (including KDevelop), as well
as the over 100 applications from the other
standard base KDE packages (addons, administration, artwork, bindings, games,
graphics, multimedia, SDK, network, PIM and utilities).

Incremental Changelog

The following are the major improvements, enhancements and fixes since the
KDE 2.1 release earlier this year:

KDE has added a new plugin-based printing framework, which features:

support for CUPS,
lpr and rlpr, though support for other printing systems can be
easily added;

Compiler Requirements. Please note thatgcc 3.0 is not
recommended for compilation of KDE 2.2beta1. Several known miscompilations
of production C++ code (such as virtual inheritance, which is used in aRts) occur with this compiler.
The problems are mostly known and the KDE team is working with the gcc team
to fix them.

Binary Packages.
Some distributors choose to provide binary packages of KDE for certain
versions of their distribution. Some of these binary packages for
KDE 2.2beta1 will be available for free download underhttp://ftp.kde.org/unstable/2.2beta1/
or under the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp servermirrors. Please note that the
KDE team is not responsible for these packages as they are provided by third
parties -- typically, but not always, the distributor of the relevant
distribution (if you cannot find a binary package for your distribution,
please read the KDE Binary Package
Policy).

Library Requirements.
The library requirements for a particular binary package vary with the
system on which the package was compiled. Please bear in mind that
some binary packages may require a newer version of Qt and/or KDE
than was included with the particular version of a distribution for
which the binary package is listed below (e.g., LinuxDistro 8.0 may have
shipped with qt-2.2.3 but the packages below may require qt-2.3.x). For
general library requirements for KDE, please see the text atSource Code - Library
Requirements above.

Package Locations.
At the time of this release, pre-compiled packages are available for:

Please check the servers periodically for pre-compiled packages for other
distributions. More binary packages will become available over the
coming days and weeks. In particular,RedHat Linux packages should be
available shortly.

About KDE

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers
worldwide to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environmentemploying a component-based, network-transparent architecture.
KDE is working proof of the power of the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software
development model to create first-rate technologies on par with
and superior to even the most complex commercial software.

Trademarks Notices.
KDE and K Desktop Environment are trademarks of KDE e.V.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Unix is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Trolltech and Qt are trademarks of Trolltech AS.
All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

Interesting screenshots, but it's a real pity that they are using a Windows window&widget style: the default KDE one looks much prettier, and doesn't give the casual viewer the impression that KDE is just a Windows rip-off. If I want to use Windows, I'll use Windows.

Opera for Linux doesn't have multilanguage support at all. It is probably OK for english speaking users...
I experienced Opera not being faster than Konqueror and Netscape 4.7.
I dunno about Java support in Opera for Linux.

I've found that opera is fast enough for me to use on my p200; which apart from netscape - nothing else is. (konqueror is fairly fast while browsing in one window - but opening new windows takes a long time, and tends to block the UI.)

What's the reason for all "unstable" versions of KDE having only the right kicker hide button and the stable releases having both or none by option? I think it could be nice to be able to choose between left, right, both or none (replace left/right with top/bottom for vertical panels) in the stable releases. Admittedly, it's not the most necessary feature, though.

Actually I tried the latest snapshot two days ago, but it crashes a lot of time (font selection in KControl and during printing). I thought that it's a good idea to use the latest beta and report the bugs (if they are present) for this one, so I downloaded it (yesterday and today). But there is a problem:
The kdesupport package is missing both from the source and Suse 7.1 directory, and the when I configure the kdelibs, it claims that I will not have sound without the kdesupport.
Do we really need it (I think we do)? Now I'm trying to use the snapshot version of the kdesupport.

The kdesupport module is deprecated except as a convenience for the cvs compiling people who do not want to go hunting for the right pieces of software (the one piece of software not available elsewhere, mimelib, was moved to kdenetwork). It is the job of your distributor to provide the necessary packages like libxml and, in your case, libaudiofile.

Thanks for clarification! I hope that the Suse packages are working correctly. I just had the problem because I'm compiling the packages for a Solaris 2.6 machine (as user), and it was present in the CVS, but not in this release. Anyway, the KDE is getting better each day!

There is a good chance that I will succeed, because I've done it a lot of time (altough I didn't compiled everything, just the kdelibs, kdebase, kdenetwork, kdeutils). The problem with making the tarballs is, that I do this at my work (as an user), with restrictions about where will it be installed and so on. I wrote a "tutorial" how to do this, I can post it to you (or to anyone who is interested in - maybe put it somewhere on the web (KDE pages???) ). It may help you to get it work.

If you don't want to go and install tons of Cooker packages to meet the dependancies... Texstar of PCLinuxOnline has built the missing kde-network and kde-network-devel packages. These work with the packages for Mandrake 8 available on ftp.kde.org (and its mirrors).

I believe he used a modified spec file from 2.2alpha1 against the 2.2beta1 source tree. Clever, that guy...

SuSE Linux users might find that KDM (the login thingy) doesn't work after they have installed the new KDE 2.2beta1: The keys simply do not work, so it's impossible to enter your password. The solution is to push Menu -> Restart X Server - then the keys will work. To avoid that in the future, you could change the KDM settings to allow automatic login. Within KDE, push K -> Preferences -> System -> Logon. Choose the last tab in the menu and enable automatic login for your user.

there's an additional solution to this problem.
You simply have to edit the file (IIRC) /opt/kde/share/apps/kdm/Xservers. There's a comment inside which explains what to do (simply uncomment a line and comment out another one).
I'm not at home at my linux box, so I cannot give
more details.

And it contains the following text, maybe it is just a bad default setting:

# Xservers - local X-server list
#
# This file should contain an entry to start the server on the
# local display; if you have more than one display (not screen),
# you can add entries to the list (one per line).··
# If you also have some X terminals connected which do not support XDMCP,
# you can add them here as well; you will want to leave those terminals
# on and connected to the network, else kdm will have a tougher time
# managing them. Each X terminal line should look like:
#»······XTerminalName:0 foreign
#

another suse user writes:
I feel like I screwed it up real bad. I did everything I could to install the update right but I MUST be missing something. Using kpackage, I first installed kdelibs (well, first i installed cups b/c i needed it) then i installed kdelibs2.2beta. then i tried to install kdebase2.2beta and i need oggvorbis and libogg or whatever, so i installed those. ok...so then i installed kdebase. tried to run konqui, and it didn't work -- no buttons on the toolbar and it wouldn't browse anything. tried to restart kde and here's what i'm getting (something like this:): unreferenced object line XX changeToolbar_style8Q . like i said, i'm not sure if it's that exactly, but it won't run. note: i went straight from kde 2.0.1 to 2.2beta is that the problem? do i need to install kde 2.1 first? how can i now that i've installed 2.2beta. i'm such a newbie...sorry...
thanks in advance for any and all help

I have recently downloaded and installed suse linux 10.1 (KDE environment). When I finished all the installing process and was about to start using it, I found out that i cannot login. The screen appeared says "linux-ptmv login" and, although I can type there, when I press enter it ask me a password but i can not type anything. How can I fix this problem, after three days i have not still use linux. I am really pissed off.

I don't believe QT 3 is binary compatible with QT 2, so they'd have to bump up the major number of KDE.

Probably, after KDE 2.2 they'll release 2.3 about 6/9 months later, then release a 3.0 fairly soon after that, which will be 2.3 ported to QT 3. Luckily, the changes from QT 2 to QT 3 seem a lot smaller than the changes from QT 1 to QT 2.

With every new KDE release the number of pro-KDE and anti-GNOME trolls increases...
(while the entire overhyped GNOME vs KDE war was only invented by trolls who have nothing else to do)
Let's hope this article doesn't reach Slashdot.

---- Found this on mosfet site ---------
Update (7/01): Actually, this isn't entirely true anymore. While everything will still remain free software, I'm going to switch to the modified QPL (some of the commerical restrictions will be removed). I'm being forced to do this because I've just been notified of KDE developer's intent to fork code that I never even had in CVS and add it to the KDE packages. It seems anything I do is subject to immediate forking by the KDE team and unofficial versions included in the base packages as a matter of procedure. If I don't want my code there they will just fork it, which has been their right but forks are usually done to add features or fix bugs. In the case of KDE2.2 this code has less features and more bugs! In many cases they didn't even rename their forks, so it makes it difficult for users to tell which versions are the ones in KDE CVS and not officially maintained by the author, and which ones are my versions and maintained by the original developer. Some developers even had the nerve to say *my* versions are the forks, even though I'm the primary author and copyright holder! Nonsense.

Thus the switch to QPL. The following software is going to be re-released under the QPL: Highcolor default, KDEStep, Laptop, Liquid, MegaGradient, ModernSystem, System, and Marble. Sorry for the inconvience this may have caused if this is a problem for you. Of course, KDE has the right to distribute forks based on obselete versions of my software, which were BSD licensed. The new license *will* be enforced for future versions, nonetheless. This is a shame, because I do truly believe the most effective development model is completely open, but this is not the case when the people designing the platform your developing for consistently take inferior versions of your code and add it to the system against your wishes instead of letting users just use your versions instead. It wouldn't be so bad if some independent coder decided to just fork my stuff and release worse versions, I really don't mind competition - but when the entire platform your developing for decides to do it simply because you've decided to start developing independently and adds less features and bugfixes you have a problem.
--- End of Message

I guess someone from KDE Developement Team can clarify rhis to stop this FUD

It's not a problem. Most of those styles really should be replaces with pixmap styles/themes, anyhow (and it's thanks to Mosfet that we have a nice fast pixmap style engine).

It's a bit of an anachronism to have these code based styles in, that offer absolutely nothing over pixmap styles. Once they are made pixmap themes/styles, they can be also made much easier to update and install.

The one thing we need with KDE 2.3 is a nice window/widget style designer. I imagine people are working on it, but over the summer I might write one as a good introduction to KDE programming for me.